Conversion
by isaytoodlepip
Summary: An AU taking place after the Tritter story arc, House returns to PPTH after courtordered rehab and must face colleauges, friends, and the question of pain management. Note: I don't read spoilers, so this is a what if story.


**Author's Note: This story takes place after the Tritter story arc. I don't read spoilers, so really this is just my guess at one of the ways the plot will play itself out on the show. And please, if you do read spoilers, don't mention them in reviews **

It wasn't the first time she'd threatened to fire him. It wasn't even the first time she'd tried using her position as his boss to force him into some medical treatment. There had been those precarious days after the infarc, the grey area between rehab and Stacy fucking off and him going back to work, still an out-patient and still raging at anyone who dared watch him struggling to walk down the halls. Cuddy had bullied him into a session on learning to live with disability. She had hissed, "Therapy. Or your fired," when he'd called her a bitch after she'd tried to help him up. After he'd fallen in front of two interns he used to supervise, before his life went to hell. So no, this wasn't the first time she'd threatened to fire him. It was just the first time he really didn't care if she was bluffing or not.

The Tritter thing had blown the hospital wide open. He knows that he's not _really_ the center of Princeton Plainsboro's little universe, no matter what he usually gets away with, but this time was different. The Diagnostics department would never be the same, sides having been chosen and loyalties laid bare. A good pharmacist had been fired. All doctors who routinely prescribed narcotics had been investigated, some persecuted, though, thankfully, none prosecuted. Wilson…was somebody he was trying not to think about. He didn't know how he could fix what he'd done. He didn't know if he should even try.

In the end, House traded his pride for freedom and agreed to court-ordered rehab rather than risk losing his medical license. It was a joke, anyway. Twelve days for twelve steps, and he went back to work after two weeks, determined not to act humbled even though he knew he'd managed to dodge the bullet this time. But then Cuddy had called him to her office and made it clear that she wasn't letting him off that easy.

"Here's what's going to happen. You're going to take a month off. You're going to check yourself into one of the recommended drug rehabilitation centers that caters to doctors dealing with addictions. You're going to do this without pay. You're going to _finish_ this treatment and, when you come back, you are going to be off the Vicodin. For good. There are alternative pain management therapies that you can try. House. I _know_ you need the drugs, but…they're going to kill you. And they nearly killed this hospital. So this is how it's going to be. You do this, or you don't work here anymore."

She looked so pathetically sincere, full of the righteous guilt you get when you're forcing someone's hand. She was being generous. He knew that. He knew that, no matter how she might feel about him, he'd really broken her heart when he'd put himself above the good of her hospital. He knew that he couldn't blame her for telling Tritter the truth. He couldn't blame her for wanting to protect him from himself. He knew he should thank her for not throwing his morphine use in his face. But he'd been kicked around too much in recent months, made to bend and concede and _compromise_ and he'd be damned if he let her dictate the terms of his life just when he'd thought it was under his control again.

"Then I fucking quit," he answered.

Normally, he wasn't so vulgar.

He didn't bother going up to his office to clear out his things. For one, he'd taken the bike that day. But really, he hadn't been looking forward to the drama of seeing Cameron, Chase, and Foreman again. On the ride into work, he'd wondered if any joke could possibly eclipse the concern, smugness, resentment, fear, guilt, and shame that had been smothering the department since Tritter first started sniffing around. Now, it was easy to run away from that inevitable failure to get back to normal. He just got back on his bike, leaving Cuddy shouting after him, and drove out to the shore. It wasn't much of a view, but it was the best place to feel just as cold and alone and hunted as he was.

He tried to weigh his options. It wasn't the first time he cursed gravity.

Money was a problem. He still owed his lawyer. Although he'd had a respectable income, he had expensive tastes in books, music, booze, t-shirts, women. Drugs. He still owed Wilson. He'd need to find a new insurance provider fast. And he was pretty sure he was unemployable. So, yeah, money was a problem.

Wilson. Well, that was another reason he hadn't gone straight back to his apartment. Cuddy would have called Wilson the minute House left the hospital and, no matter how much he'd screwed up there, Wilson wouldn't just let him fuck his life up. That's not to say he cared _what_ House did any more, but if you put so much time and energy into trying to hold someone together, stubbornness can give enough momentum to keep the habit going, when all other motivations have long since disappeared.

Finally, as the sun was setting, he got back on his bike and headed for home, gritting his teeth against the wind and the pain. He hadn't had pain relief in three weeks. He'd lost ten pounds since going to rehab, the pain making it impossible to eat enough and keep it all down. He was shrinking in every way, wasting away and becoming less and less and damn Cuddy for not seeing that and damn her for trying to make him even smaller by pushing and pushing and pushing.

His lights were on when he pulled up to his apartment building. He left his engine running and tried to imagine how he wanted this to go. _He'd walk through the door and the place would be a mess, torn open and inside out, but this time, this time Wilson would be there in the doorway. "No pills?" he'd ask, and he'd really look at House and he'd see that he'd changed, that he'd decided that feeling just numb enough to ignore the pain wasn't worth the destruction he was inflicting on the people and things he cared about. "I'm on a strict regimen of hookers and booze," he'd joke. And then they'd have dinner and watch TV and, just before leaving or crashing for the night on his couch, Wilson would say, "We'll figure something out. Nobody wants you to be in pain. No matter what you might think."_

But that would never happen. Wilson would just stand there with his hands on his hips, or maybe rubbing the tension in his neck in a show of, "this is what you do to me," and he'd lecture. He'd nag. He'd be so obviously disappointed in House, and angry that he had to spend his time on _this_, when they weren't even really friends anymore, and the whole night would end in disaster. Either House would get so pissed off or feel so cornered that he'd break Wilson's nose, or Wilson would decide that House wasn't really worth it and just give up and break House's heart.

So House stayed on his bike and stayed in a hotel.

"Why do you always come here?"

"I don't remember ordering you with my room service."

Then House opened his eyes. Wilson was sitting on the edge of the hotel bed, light streaming in from gaps between the curtains he'd mercifully kept drawn. House always came to this hotel when he was trying to hide. He'd come here when he was fighting with Stacy. He'd come here when he was so drunk he couldn't remember where he lived. He'd come here when he was too ashamed of his scar to let her see it, that first night out of the hospital. He'd come here when he was too scared of the scent of her on their pillows, the night she left him for good. And always, always, Wilson would find him to take him home.

"Give me a minute," he moaned, rubbing at his face and thigh and wishing he wasn't so grateful that someone knew him so well.

"Just go ahead and do it," Wilson sighed, his eyes searching the room for the bottle of Vicodin.

"Just go ahead and fuck off," House snarled, angry at Wilson for…what, exactly? Bad-mouthing an ex-girlfriend? Feeling ridiculous for feeling hurt, he tried to sit up, forgetting again that it wasn't so easy these days.

"_Christ_," Wilson yelped when House doubled over and threw up into the bedside trashcan.

"Water?" House asked, silently begging Wilson to give him just a minute to work on his leg and his dignity in private. Wilson obliged.

"Where are your pills?" he asked ten minutes later, after watching House clean up his own mess for a change.

"All gone."

"I'm not writing for you."

"Didn't ask you to."

They sat there in silence, and after a while, House decided that even at his most maudlin he couldn't angst over his relationship with Wilson for more than a few minutes at a time, so by the time Wilson opened his mouth again, House was balancing his check book in his head and cataloging which LPs he'd be willing to sell for some ready cash.

"What's going on, Greg?"

"Hmm?" he asked, shaking himself back into the present.

"You…you're off your meds, aren't you?" Wilson asked, making a show of taking in House's eroded body, his pain-worn face. When House didn't say anything, he simply asked, "How long?"

"A few weeks," he shrugged.

"_Weeks?!_"

"Three."

And again, there was silence.

House hadn't wanted it to be this way. Obviously. He'd never planned to become a cripple. To become dependent on pain pills. He'd admitted to being an addict even before he became one, because part of him thought it would be easier that way, somehow. Then the pain got worse, and life got worse, and then he nearly lost them both, and the hope that things would change, would end, was snatched away from him. And trust was snatched away, too. House hadn't planned on becoming an addict, even if he'd expected it. But he'd done his best and damned himself and _decided_ and he wanted that to be enough. Even now, he didn't want to have to explain himself to Wilson, of all people. This was _his_ life. _His choice_. He'd agreed to rehab and he'd gone and he shouldn't be expected to give up any more control than he already had. He'd given up enough.

"Are you going to talk to me?" Wilson demanded.

"No."

Before, that wouldn't have been enough. Now, though, Wilson left. House tried to convince himself it was easier that way.

When House went back to his apartment that afternoon, there was a joint on the coffee table. _Cute_.

Two days later, House had five offers of teaching positions waiting for his response. He also had an application to Borders Books & Music sitting on his desk, equally tempting. Even though it was nice to know he was not without options, that fact alone did not make the options any more appealing, and House had decided to just sit on his couch, wait until the peanut butter and canned soup ran out, and defend his stronghold against intruders. Of course, the only person who came knocking at his door was Chase. That had been unexpected. But the intensivist still didn't make it past the threshold.

It wasn't all just a juvenile sulk-fest. That was a big part of it (and he tried to convince himself that the late-night phone call to his mom _just to say hi_ was only an hallucination). But the pain was a bigger issue, one he couldn't ignore without the distraction of friends and employment. True, it wasn't as bad as it had been those first days in rehab, after he'd detoxed and got to the _real_ pain, the one that would never go away, hurting all the more for its permanence. He vaguely remembered lunches in the cafeteria as being particularly hellish, when he'd only have to look at a butter knife for thoughts of amputation to taunt him, beckon him. He vividly remembered hiding his food under shredded napkins and going back to his room hungry and hating himself for regressing into an angst-ridden teen, complete with an eating disorder and the desire to cut. It didn't matter that it was just the pain that made him lose his appetite, or that he never _acted_ on the growing impulse to just chop his damn leg off and be done with it. The Wilson of his hallucination, who had nagged at him for dismissing the physical, had been right. He had never been able to dismiss the pain, but he'd trained himself to think that he was above such bodily concerns. He'd trained himself to be only his mind, his wit, his intelligence. The rest, it didn't matter. His limp, his cane, his entire visage, blue blue eyes included, the only purpose they served were as catalysts for reaction. He could measure people by the way they looked at him. That was interesting. And the few times he could be bothered to have sex, they were usually interesting, too. But beyond that, he had ignored his body, damned his health, and focused on the one uncorrupted portion of himself. His mind.

Without the drugs, it was impossible. Every minute became a discourse in pain. _Where can I rest my foot without crumpling? Am I up to putting on my pants? Can I make it to the bathroom without falling, or should I just hold it for a while? Should I bother making a sandwich? What the hell was I reading five minutes ago?_ Unlike two years ago, when he'd taken the bet that showed him just how dependent he'd become on Vicodin, he wasn't living off acetaminophen and whisky and massages and the puzzle of a case and the need to prove Cuddy and Wilson wrong. He wasn't taking _anything_. He wasn't drinking. And he didn't know why. He occasionally wondered, as he watched his soaps and absently plucked his guitar strings, if he was trying to punish them for letting him get to this point. But the pain kept him from focusing on his motives for too long.

Two days later, he took the bus to the hospital to pick up a few of his things. He knew he looked like shit, with almost a full beard and a shirt more baggy and wrinkled than even he cared for, and he decided that _that's_ why the nurses in the lobby stared at him as he walked by. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Brenda reach for the phone.

Diagnostics was empty. His team had probably been reassigned to other departments while Cuddy sorted things out. The only sign that the place hadn't been abandoned was the white board. "**47 year old bastard. Infarc chronic pain Vicodin. Rehab NO PAIN RELIEF (3+ wks)** Redundant ultimatum quits job_. PSYCH SYMPTOMS – anger, depression, antisocial_ (**inherent?**). _Weight loss (nausea from pain, depression?). X Conversion disorder. _Isolated. **Proud & pig-headed, forced into admitting addiction in front of colleagues, forced into rehab, gives up all forms of pain relief, comes home, ordered to go back to rehab.** Why not say he's clean? Irrational (pain?). X _Pouting. X Martyr. Vindictive_. **Drama queen**. Can't do his job when he's in this much pain_? Why NO pain management?_ X To prove he can. **Doesn't want to ask for help?** _Fear_."

Three different hands. Chase had been a good boy and stayed away from the markers. House drew a smiley face next to Wilson's "conversion disorder," went into his office, stuffed his phrenology head and giant ball into his backpack, tucked his albums under his arm, and made his way back to the elevator, longing for the days when he could call his fellows idiots and really truly mean it.

Was he afraid? He didn't want to become addicted again. He could care less what happened to him, to his poor abused liver, but the fallout had hurt everyone and, bastard though he may be, he wasn't beyond feeling regret. At the same time, he remembered what it was like, looking for effective pain meds. He'd done it after the infarction and, whatever Wilson might think, he'd done it at least twice a year since. Every new pill, he'd either be puking his guts out, shitting his guts out, or just too out of his mind to pay any attention to his guts at all. And fuck the wait-and-see. He couldn't afford to wait and see, when he'd had a job to do. Now, though, what did he have to lose? And why didn't he just take an Advil or five, even if it would only make it hurt just a fraction less? _Ok, the depression might not be so much of a stretch_.

By the time he reached the lobby, House had sketched out three tentative treatment options. A) He'd take that month that Cuddy had offered, stretch it out to two, go out of town, get his leg amputated, pray that there'd be no phantom pain, and come back to work with a pimped out prosthetic. B) Go back on the Vicodin, but make Cuddy hold onto his pills, giving him the prescribed dose at the appropriate time, not holding out when he fails to turn up at clinic and not giving him an extra special treat when he's been a good boy or even has a particularly bad day. C) Peanut butter, soup, plenty of bed rest, and an unfulfilling teaching job at some random New England med school.

Predictably, Wilson and Cuddy were waiting for him at the admit desk.

He wasn't going to make this easy on them by getting in the first word, even if he had the vaguest idea about what he wanted to say.

"You're being an ass," Wilson greeted.

"Don't pick on me," House mock-whimpered. "Conversion disorders make me fragile."

"Hey, I crossed it off the list," Wilson pointed out, and House was having fun with this. This, he could work with. Cuddy staring at him like she was about to tell him she'd run over his puppy dog, well, on a better day he could work with that, too, but now he just didn't have the energy.

"You've lost weight," she observed.

"What, since Monday?"

"Since…"

"Well, love to stay and chat, but I've got an insert some believable excuse to get to," he interrupted, pushing the strap of his backpack up his shoulder, the weight of his load more than a little uncomfortable.

"I want you to come back to work," she said.

"Sorry, I've already got a job lined up," he lied.

"Not if I don't give you a good reference," she pointed out, and House had to give Wilson credit for wincing at that incredibly _wrong_ thing to say.

"The fact that you'd even _consider_ black balling me is exactly why I won't work for you any more," House growled, and then he left to catch his bus.

It wasn't as if a bad word from Cuddy would really keep him from getting one of the teaching positions. They'd already offered him the job, and it was easier to ignore his particular personality traits when the most pressing of his responsibilities would be turning grades in on time and publishing the occasional article. But the heavy-handed approach Cuddy and Wilson had adopted when dealing with him since…well, since before he'd been shot, had been more than annoying before and he wasn't about to let either of them dictate the terms of his life any more. The concern of a friend wasn't an alien concept to him. That, he could understand, maybe even appreciate. But lying to him _for his own good_ or using his pain to hold him hostage or dangling a _bad reference_ like some very dull sword of Damocles over his head…it didn't make him _feel_ impotent or infantilized but it showed him that _they_ thought they could justify any degree of manipulation as long as it was for the greater good. They were treating him worse than he treated his patients. How ironic was that?

Wilson beat him home.

"She didn't mean it. It's some sort of…administrative instinct. We just want you to come back to work. And to take your pills."

"You know, I seriously considered having my leg amputated," House answered, one of his finer non sequiturs, if he was in any position to judge.

"Look, if you just want some kind of…official sanction, some elaborate certificate to hang on your wall that says, 'We, the undersigned, approve of Gregory House's drug use and promise not to fuck with him any more,' then you've won. Ok? Just take your pills and come back to work," Wilson snapped, hands flying about and eyebrows threatening to consolidate into one giant strip mall across his forehead. He was pissed.

"That _would_ be nice. But I did. Consider it."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want this to happen again!"

"But you wouldn't really do it, would you?" Wilson asked, though it wasn't really a question and they both knew it.

"No. My legs are too pretty."

"Be serious."

"I am. You've never seen me in a miniskirt."

"That's what _you_ think."

In the end, House went with Plan B. It wasn't ideal, but Cuddy was just as discreet with her new task as he had been months before when he'd administered her fertility drugs. Like any palliative measure, the Vicodin didn't take certain things into account. Cramps, cold weather, too much or too little walking, all of the times when House would have taken his meds a bit earlier and all of the times when he'd just take _more_, he now had to sit and wait and distract himself by staring at the certificate hanging on his office wall. Wilson's secretary had been a bit too enthusiastic about it and had gotten half of the hospital to sign it before having it framed. There was even a purple-crayoned scrawl from one of Wilson's cancer kids (though he imagined certain words had been covered up before it had been passed over).

But the most surprising signature, when he really thought about it, was Cuddy's. She'd folded much faster than he had anticipated. No more talk about alternative pain management, even if the logic was sound. No more talk about taking up physio again. All he'd had to do to get nearly everything he wanted was to quit for a few days. He'd gotten to skip that awkward reunion with his team in favor of an understood _we shall never speak of this again_. He'd gotten to skip a drawn out dramatic confrontation with Wilson in favor of a consolidated bargaining/nagging session. Most importantly, he got to keep taking his Vicodin.

He wondered if it was _really_ the cane that let him get away with this stuff so easily. Don't you have to be a hero to be a _tragic hero_? It was an interesting question, one that might prove a distraction enough as he drifted through long nights without his old stash of pills.

He'd figure it out, one day.

Just not this sober.


End file.
